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Join me during the show's first virtual happy hour when I talk with Shauna Hahn, a psychiatric nurse and storyteller in Portland, Oregon. We touch upon a variety of topics including TMS as a treatment for depression, vulnerability in storytelling and a little tangent on Tiger King! We also talk about her new book-in-progress that tells her personal story as a Plains Cree Indian losing her culture through adoption who sued the Canadian Government and is buying back her culture one activity at a time.

Episode Notes

"When you're in a Zoom meeting, you see yourself. It's like looking into a mirror as you're supporting people. Some of my patients, particularly those with dysmorphia or body image issues, often feel very self-conscious looking at themselves as they are confiding. It's a sensitive format."

"We are literally forcing areas of the brain that don't tend to work well in anxiety, in depression, in post traumatic stress disorder, in brain injury. We are literally forcing these areas of the brain to fire down into the rich connectome - structures that aren't necessarily physically adjacent to that area, but we know are connected."

"A lot of people who suffer with depression - it is the exception and not the norm for people to feel better or to be adequately treated on their anti-depression medication."

"I'm a late-in-life nurse. I was just an unsettled young person; kind of a party girl. Then I had an unplanned pregnancy when I was in my first undergraduate degree, which kind of sidelined me."

"Psychiatry is just about having a kind ear for people's lives."

"I get to bear witness to some of the scariest, most shameful, deepest experiences a person's had."

"We can certainly have a meant relationship with a therapeutic provider and it can really take on a very deep soulful quality."

On live storytelling: "The person who breaks the ice, that is the hardest job, that is the anchor of the evening."

"There was always this one extra layer between me and the story where I wasn't really quite willing to crack open enough and invite that vulnerability in enough for people, to have raised the stakes and to make the story more compelling."

"That's why people seek out therapy, right? They need a sacred space with a professional stranger."

"The rough part of storytelling is cutting on your baby.  You've got to cut cut cut cut cut. And it hurts."

"That's what a good story does, it just shows you an aspect of yourself and helps you know yourself better."

Bio:

Shauna Hahn is a semi-accurate storyteller who very nearly tells the truth. She is a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner who owns her own TMS practice. She is a veteran of community health and twin parenting. She is a Plains Cree Indian from rural Saskatchewan who writes a lot about her experiences there. She makes and drinks wine, she enjoys reading really stupid books, and she skis—bunny hills only, because she is cowardly (which as she understands it, means towards the cow).

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Framework Functional Psychiatry 

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